Chestnut Sweets and Desserts

[DianaB]

On 10/4/2022 at 11:58 PM, TicTac said:

Still have fond memories of visiting La Duree in Paris about 20 years back with my grandmother.  Their macarons were good - but their chestnut 'noodles' on chestnut cream was far superior! 

A Mont Blanc?  
 

Curious to know what the Marie Antoinette macaron tastes of, all of the other flavours seem straightforward…. 

[KennethT]

6 hours ago, DianaB said:

A Mont Blanc?  
 

Curious to know what the Marie Antoinette macaron tastes of, all of the other flavours seem straightforward…. 

The Marie Antoinette was really hard to describe - maybe kind of like perfume?  It was really good - I'd get it again...

[TicTac]

22 hours ago, DianaB said:

A Mont Blanc?  
 

Curious to know what the Marie Antoinette macaron tastes of, all of the other flavours seem straightforward…. 

It might have been their version of.

 

We went back twice and I had two iterations of a chestnut dessert, one puree, one extruded into noodle like shapes.  Both equally delicious.

 

 

 

 

[DianaB]

On 10/10/2022 at 2:52 PM, TicTac said:

It might have been their version of.

 

We went back twice and I had two iterations of a chestnut dessert, one puree, one extruded into noodle like shapes.  Both equally delicious.

 

 

 

 

The version with noodle like strands will have been a Mont Blanc.  Lots of chestnut based desserts appear as autumn progresses.  

[Jim D.]

Coming across this thread led me to think about making a chestnut bonbon for my Christmas selection.  I consulted my chocolate book collection and found a promising recipe in Wybauw's Fine Chocolates Gold.  But I am confused by missing items from the ingredient list.  At first "Chestnut Truffles" (p. 220) sounds like a butter ganache recipe (butter, honey, chestnut purée, rum, milk chocolate), but the instructions also include:  "Mix the cocoa butter together with the chocolate and stir through the cream."  Nowhere are cocoa butter or cream listed.  Editing problems have been discussed in regard to this book in another thread, but this omission seems particularly puzzling.  Has anyone tried this recipe or have suggestions on quantities of cocoa butter and cream?  I gave away my copies of the individual Wybauw books that were combined into the Gold volume, so can't check those.

 

Wybauw gives the total batch size of the recipe as 740g, but the listed ingredients total 470g.  That's a big difference (270g), meaning a lot of cream and cocoa butter.

 

Correction:  I rechecked my math, and Wybauw's recipe does total 740g.  I'm still trying to figure out what to do with the cream and cocoa butter.  Perhaps when he says to stir the chocolate and cocoa butter through the cream, he is referring to the chestnut purée mixture as a cream?  I'm going to give this a try, omitting any extra cocoa butter and treating it as a butter ganache.

Edited October 13, 2022 by Jim D.
To correct total grams in recipe. (log)

[JeanneCake]

On 10/12/2022 at 2:02 PM, Jim D. said:

Perhaps when he says to stir the chocolate and cocoa butter through the cream, he is referring to the chestnut purée mixture as a cream?  I'm going to give this a try, omitting any extra cocoa butter and treating it as a butter ganache.

 

I used to get a chestnut puree that came from a local distributor, it was a green and white can (about the size of a can of sweetened condensed milk) and it was labelled chestnut cream.  I wonder if there's added sugar to it, if it's called chestnut cream?  and if there's no sugar then it's called puree?  Just a guess.  I know AUI carries a chestnut "puree" - or they used to, from Vanini.  It was ok.  I liked the green can one better....

[Jim D.]

2 hours ago, JeanneCake said:

 

I used to get a chestnut puree that came from a local distributor, it was a green and white can (about the size of a can of sweetened condensed milk) and it was labelled chestnut cream.  I wonder if there's added sugar to it, if it's called chestnut cream?  and if there's no sugar then it's called puree?  Just a guess.  I know AUI carries a chestnut "puree" - or they used to, from Vanini.  It was ok.  I liked the green can one better....

 

I tried two chestnut purées:  The most commonly available one, Clément Faugier, had (to my palate) virtually no taste.  The second one, which I found at L'Epicerie, was Corsiglia and was sweetened a little and much more "chestnutty."  So I started with the butter ganache recipe from Wybauw, and, as might have been anticipated, the milk chocolate he recommended completely covered up any chestnut taste.  Same was true with dark.  So I switched to white chocolate (Opalys) and got a little chestnut taste.  I kept replacing the chocolate with cocoa butter until I had an acceptable flavor, but too much cocoa butter and the texture suffered.  So I was at the point of completely abandoning this idea but found one more possibility:  L'Epicerie carries a chestnut "aroma" from France, and I plan to order that.  I have tried other aromas from the same company, and many of them are really good (apple, apricot, mango, pear).

[MikanPotatos]

On 10/31/2022 at 9:34 PM, Jim D. said:

 

I tried two chestnut purées:  The most commonly available one, Clément Faugier, had (to my palate) virtually no taste.  The second one, which I found at L'Epicerie, was Corsiglia and was sweetened a little and much more "chestnutty."  So I started with the butter ganache recipe from Wybauw, and, as might have been anticipated, the milk chocolate he recommended completely covered up any chestnut taste.  Same was true with dark.  So I switched to white chocolate (Opalys) and got a little chestnut taste.  I kept replacing the chocolate with cocoa butter until I had an acceptable flavor, but too much cocoa butter and the texture suffered.  So I was at the point of completely abandoning this idea but found one more possibility:  L'Epicerie carries a chestnut "aroma" from France, and I plan to order that.  I have tried other aromas from the same company, and many of them are really good (apple, apricot, mango, pear).

 

I've done a lot of research into chestnuts and I have determined its almost impossible to get chestnut flavor from premade pastes. The issue with chestnuts is they decompose rapidly so most manufacturers tend to load lots of sugar into them for shelf life. The best chestnut desserts I've had were made with pastes that were just 6hours to a 1 day old. The aromas sound like a good idea to bypass this limitation.

As an aside, I have found that fresh roasted and pureed chestnuts, heavy cream, butter and sugar makes for a delicious filling. The shelf life is < 2 days but the taste is perfect.  

[Jim D.]

14 hours ago, MikanPotatos said:

 

I've done a lot of research into chestnuts and I have determined its almost impossible to get chestnut flavor from premade pastes. The issue with chestnuts is they decompose rapidly so most manufacturers tend to load lots of sugar into them for shelf life. The best chestnut desserts I've had were made with pastes that were just 6hours to a 1 day old. The aromas sound like a good idea to bypass this limitation.

As an aside, I have found that fresh roasted and pureed chestnuts, heavy cream, butter and sugar makes for a delicious filling. The shelf life is < 2 days but the taste is perfect.  

 

Very useful information on chestnuts (that is, I was wise to abandon the idea).  I finally gave the Corsiglia paste to someone who likes to experiment with unusual food combinations, and I think she is working on a chestnut + thinly sliced Italian or Spanish ham dish.  Sorry to report that the chestnut aroma was a complete failure.  I tasted it again and again, and never got the slightest hint of chestnut.  Vanilla yes, maybe rum, but no chestnut.  It was not unpleasant, but I have no use for it.  Another $23 down the drain of experimentation.  Especially disappointing since the same company's apricot, apple, and pear are wonderful.